Recently, advertisers have begun to look beyond “traditional” media (e.g., magazines and television) and have begun looking to “new media” (e.g., online and mobile services) to increase the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. Online advertising is appealing because an advertiser can put an advertisement in front of an audience that is actively searching for information. This allows the advertiser to tap into the needs of people prepared to buy rather than, as in the traditional approach, blindly sending advertisements to people who are simply watching television or reading a print medium.
However, even as people spend more time online, traditional media remain very important (and they still receive the majority of advertising dollars). Indeed, rather than simply replacing traditional media time with online time, many people are beginning to combine traditional and new media. For example, while they watch television, they also pay attention to a “companion device” (e.g., a laptop computer or a smart phone). These users then receive programming (which can include advertising) both through the television and through the companion device.
These media are very different and the programming (which, again, can include advertising) delivered through them can be very different. This can cause conflicts when, for example, a user, while watching a very romantic movie, receives a funny advertisement on his companion device. The advertisement may, in itself, be unobjectionable to the user, but the conflicting sentiments between the movie and the advertisement confuses the user and may lead to “advertising dissonance.” The dissonance reduces both the user's enjoyment of the movie and the advertisement's effectiveness for this user.